Then in a hard sort of voice, Zai turns to her companion:
“I hope you won’t be surprised at my speaking to you plainly, Lord Delaval, and don’t be shocked if I ignore the convenances in my words.”
He is feeling rather irritated against her. The evening had begun as he thought so sweetly, and now a latent suspicion is in his mind that Zai’s willingness to be with him so much to-night has proceeded from some arrière pensée which he cannot quite divine.
“Continue, and do not mind about shocking me I beg of you; I am capable of standing a good deal, you know,” and he gives a curt laugh.
“You heard, of course, all that Gabrielle and Sir Everard Aylmer said about us?”
He bows his head.
“Of course, Lord Delaval, you don’t require me to tell you how ridiculous all they said was, and since they were so ridiculous and never would be anything else, imagine how distasteful they are to me.”
“Which part of their conversation was distasteful?”
Zai blushes under the starlit sky.
“You must know which part,” she answers half shyly.